Ice pea

Zillions of people seemed to be out walking on the ice in front of our fair city on this sunny Sunday. But one poor b*****d in a boat has been going around in circles for hours preventing ice from forming so that more lorry-loads of snow can be dumped into the Baltic.

Anyone wanting to go there, take the 14B or 16 to the end stop, tip of Hernesaari, and be mesmerised.

Besides the zillions on the ice quite a few people were hanging out in Hernesaari. Part of New Helsinki (which is to say where Helsinki used to go to work when work was physical and manipulated stuff directly), Hernesaari is a strange thing. Largely landfill, the jobs still being done there will have to go in 2012 after which it will be liberated for uses with better price-quality ratios (as we Finns say).

Currently there are some sizeable harbour buildings and facilities. Loads of boaty things, helicoptery things, a place to get the statutory check up of your car sorted, and somewhere to arrive by cruise ship and buy souvenirs (at the back of the line of cars), and to park cars. Presumably they were mostly there to chauffeur kids to and from ice hockey or figure skating training.

My young ice-hockey playing friend was taken by public transport. He told me and the parent about how much he likes ice hockey. He also told us about the painting or mural on the wall of the cafe in the ice rink. Cafe Jääherne, Ice Pea. (Yes, Herne does mean pea). I’d already spotted the mural on the corrugated iron wall. And I’d photographed it (small people in vastly expensive sports gear whizzing around an ice rink is a cute thing to watch but it didn’t really sustain my interest very long).

So my friend told me that the people who run the cafe are going to build a new one when the ice rink (once some industrial building) gets torn down and is replaced by all those new homes. That’s why they drew a picture of what the future will be like.

The cafe is a bit hard to see, but it’s there on the right-hand corner of the cross street, by the yellow car

My little friend’s parent started to say something along the lines of, why is Helsinki being turned into luxury homes. I’m not sure Hernesaari will be but even if it does fall victim to waterfront-development, I’d not know how to have a very constructive discussion about it.

So we began to talk about pancake. While one guy had some.

Hietsu pavilion – malign neglect or what?

There are a few good things that still come through one’s letter box in paper form. There is the official organ of the City of Helsinki, the Info (“English supplement on the Web”) which isn’t all bad. And for those of who subscribe, there is the free-of-charge and wonderful Sofia courtesy of the City Museum.

And then there are the local rags. Ours is the paper-only Töölöläinen.

It is tabloid-size and its adverts look the same from decade to decade. It has several really rather informative columns and listings, and like freebies generally, it has lots of those restaurant reviews that were probably written by the owner.

It is also very keen on architecture. Maybe the people who read it really do pay attention to the stuff around them. Each week they have a photo competition where you have to work out the location of some small architectural detail. Something like this, for example.

And they campaign. Recently they have been keen to talk about the fate of the wooden pavilion at the beach in Hietaranta. Shamefully, it has been allowed to fall into a terrible state of direpair. It was designed by Gunnar Taucher , one of Helsinki’s earliest “municipal head architects”. (The chap who designed the wonderful but barely noticeable Töölö health centre, that most people still know as Kivelä hospital.)

As Töölöläinen keeps reminding readers, Taucher’s wooden pavilion by the enduringly (and deservedly) popular beach by Hietaniemi Cemetery is a treasure. (Photograph from October 2009).

It is a rare surviving example of 1930s wooden building in Helsinki. The City Museum’s view has been all along that the building should be restored. Well, “all along”, at least since 2001 when pressures to get more efficient financial returns on city real estate provoked someone into examining the pavilion’s architectural and historical significance as well as physical condition.

On 30.01.2011 Töölöläinen notes – again  – that the city’s leisure department considers the building unfit for purpose. And informs us that a demolition permit was granted in December.

Besides our local paper, a number of City Councillors are also campaigning to save the building. It is, after all, beautiful.  And given what we know of the preferences of the current crop of planning officers and responsible politicians, it is almost certainly a more loveable as well as more democratic building than any that might replace it.

Which takes us to the brou-ha-ha about the spa and hotel (!) plans under the name Taivallahti in the same area. Surely, it was proposed, the best beach in the city deserves better than … er… a loved, structurally sound building which whispers to us of so many  generations of beach-lovers in this city.

A few years back, when the spa and hotel debate was alive (actually, it still is) a councillor (Paavo Arhinmäki) had this to say:

Jos ajattelemme Hietsua, Hietarannan uimarantaa, niin sehän on nimenomaan stadilaisten, helsinkiläisten merellinen paratiisi.

or

Hietsu is precisely our marine paradise.

His point is and was that it’s for us ordinary people, not for the fantasy tourist whose fat wallet will save the city from ruin.

Let’s hope that the fashion for and the belief in building for opulence-hungry visitors will soon fade away. When that’s achieved, construction decisions and a robust schedule for careful management and upkeep will get the room they, and we, deserve.

This is Regatta

Tourist coaches generally orient footfall towards the four lanes of traffic on Mechelininkatu when visiting the Sibelius Monument (to us Helsinki’s most persistently baffling photo op). But on the other side of the monument and the park, water beckons.

And Regatta. Regatta is a little red cabin (just up from the 1930s Rowing Stadium) serving coffee, pulla (buns) and good cheer. Regatta pays you to have an extra cup of coffee (“santsi kuppi“). Regatta is friendly and interesting. And Regatta makes sure that nothing you see around you remains a mystery.

This is Regatta’s Official Car

This is a boat

Collecting point for dirty dishes

This is a box of carrots (as well as a word game,  porkkanalaatikko is carrot bake, a popular dish at Finnish Christmas dinners).

Take care: Nail!

And the one below is a particular favourite of JHJ’s. “Dear (esteemed) driver. You are on private property. Brief (about 10 min.) pit stops allowed. Please take care of the City’s lawn.”

Waterfront wisdom

In sunshine like this it’s easy to embrace the principle (not the philosophy) of positivism, as opposed to negativism. We at JHJ are going to stop pointing out the sad things and the bad things associated with waterfront regeneration and offer examples of all the good and the wise things associated with Helsinki’s generous shoreline.

Like the sauna, beer and books, many of these good things have been around for a very long time.

Number one: a jetty on Töölönlahti.

Not quite a crowd of curious onlookers, but pretty much everyone around watched with interest as the workmen from Marinetek were up to. That includes the people sitting behind me having coffee.

The guys did say the jetty is there as a kind of advert. As an innovation advertising’s probably not as old as jetties. Marine archaeologists can tell us lots of stuff about their history.